July 30, 2011

"It was surreal: 3 black SUVs speeding by [perhaps 45 mph], tires ka-thumping over railroad tracks one after the other. Protesters begin to yell as they get a glimpse of the vehicles in their peripheral vision, all turning to the road. They run after the vehicles, their signs flailing. Some want to run but decide to stay rooted by the railroad tracks that run behind the building where we’ve been assembling – maybe in hopes he’d double back or in realization that they won’t run fast enough to catch him. The chanting and yelling intensifies to a dull roar around the other side of the building and I listen to the state troopers get questioned by a couple of angry men: 'Do you honestly think that was under the speed limit?'"

Remind me why you think it was the 3 black SUVs that looked "sinister"? The Governor is hounded by people who call themselves "stalkers" ("Walker Stalkers"), and you fault him for taking security measures?

There is little in this world more pathetic than a small group of losers acting like they are in charge egged on by like-minded fools. If we as a society decide to curb global warming we should start with these childish, neanderthal throwbacks.

"Opportunties Inc. puts disabled people in deadend sub-minimum wage work – work supported by federal medicaid grants. And “sub-minimum” is really very much below $7.50/hour: 323 of Opp. Inc’s employees worked at sub-minimum wage in 2009. 300 earned less than $5 an hour, 161 earned under $2/hour and 66 worked for under $1 an hour.

I learned that Goodwill of Southeastern Wisconsin is the largest such outfit in the nation."

Amazing what your tax dollars fund. Not a bad idea, though. What they aren't mentioning is that they hire the developmentally disabled, meaning retarded adults, at below min. wage because no one will hire them at minimum wage. Minimum wage goes to 'the disabled' that no one wants to hire for what are usually obvious reasons.

My retarded brother works for one of those places in South Dakota. They pay him piecework for filling little bags with the screws for things like ceiling fans and the like. Gives him something to do and provides him a little dough to spend on what he wants, which is usually nothing. His room and board are paid for by the family and some state subsidies.

I am certain a machine could do the same work for cheaper, but for the Medicaid subsidy.

You take people no one else will hire and pay them more than what they are worth through a tax subsidy to give them something for working, usually barely working, for a few hours. Depends on the disability. My brother apparently is very slow but methodical.

"It is deeply disturbing that at a time when there is such a desperate need for family-sustaining jobs that Scott Walker celebrates a government-funded employer that profits from minimum and sub-minimum wage jobs," says Robert Kraig, executive director of Citizen Action of Wisconsin, in a statement."

What they will accomplish, of course, is closing down these sub-minimum wage workshops because paying retarded people more than what they are worth somehow is demeaning.

What a joke the Lefties are. Walker is their new Orwellian Goldstein, an object of hate to keep their simple minds from recognizing the real evil. Just like with Bush, Palin, etc. The willful stupidity and seething unhappiness that animate the Left need an outlet and Walker is the chosen one. I fucking hate Liberals.

You know - other states are making really severe cuts, too, some involving the Unions - I catch bits and pieces in the limited articles about them - why, WHY, do they not receive much mention, why are the OFA?ACORN/Unions goons going in and making a big to-do there?

In Washington state it is a Democrat Governor, so obviously they aren't going to give her much grief... but what is it about Wisconsin besides it being a Republican governor? Does it have to do with its value in the Republican election?

Larry, a man who’s worked at Opportunities Inc. and got laid off a few days ago. His story is about witnessing illegal immigrants using others’ documents to get work at Opportunities Inc. and about being farmed out as a temporary worker to area businesses that refused to grant him a permanent job.

Gee.... I wonder why no one snapped up Larry as a permanent worker? (sarcasm)

Leave aside your speculation about the protester's description of the vehicles. The local paper described it this way: "The motorcade appeared to be traveling fast as it passed protestors and law enforcement officers along the roadway. Wisconsin State Patrol troopers on the corner acknowledged observing the vehicles' seemingly higher rate of speed and subsequently spoke with the drivers, advising them to be more cautious."

So why does the presence of protesters allow the Governor's entourage to defy the speed limit? Let's speculate about the mindset of the people in those vehicles, too.

This douchenozzle guy said..So why does the presence of protesters allow the Governor's entourage to defy the speed limit? Let's speculate about the mindset of the people in those vehicles, too.”

Generally speaking the drivers of a motorcade will speed up and take evasive action if they feel there is an element of danger to the person they are protecting. The presences of a large group of unwashed incoherent foaming at the mouth lunatics might be considered more than enough reason to speed it up a little.

Let's bust the Governor's driver for speeding. Fire his sorry State worker ass, who cares? Just be sure to ignore the serial vandalization, trespassing and disruptions of public order that have characterized Madison for half a year. Nice priorities, scumbags.

I bumped into the Govenor of Georgia the other night in a Mexican place. He was dripping wet and the two guys with him were shaking out their umbrellas. He ordered and paid for his food and then he was in conversation with the Mexican lady who works the register. They had their pictures taken together and then the Govenor and his two aids dashed into the storm. They drove out of the lot in a black Chevrolet Suburban. Nothing sinister at all. Georgia has some tough measures against illegal immigrants and there are thse hustlers claiming that these laws have creatrd a "climate of fear" in the Latino "community.". I saw the Mexican lady last night and she showed me her picture with the Govenor of Georgia, grinning and dripping wet, his arm around her shoulder.

Opportunities has been around since 1966, and now the protesters show up?

Doesn't look like Sly has been opting for the apple slices instead of the jumbo fries. That street gets 100 yards longer and 10 degrees warmer and he wins the free hearse ride.

Re Bob and Lily: no comment. But I am still waiting for all of the workers rights advocates to offer at least a bottle of water to the guys doing the tear-off and re-roof on the building in the background. No AC or fans visible there.

Larry must have lost his brother Darryl, and his other brother Darryl.

And, since others have made comments on the scrubbiness of the crowd, has there been a study done to determine how much money one has put away for their retirement vs. how much money they have spent on their tattoos, and their allegiance to the left?

Since Trooper brought up homeless people[having been one himself until he got off the pipe], it should be mentioned that the potential last victim of Dahmer, who escaped the apartment from hell, was just charged w/ homicide. He threw a fellow homeless guy off a bridge. In Brooklyn that's just littering.

Crack, If you were driving they would assume you're JC Watts and call you an oreo..it's always open season on black conservatives..hell you don't even need a license.

What better metaphor for the relationship between the citizen and the state today than government officials riding around in vehicles that are out of all proportion to their task and completely opaque to outside observers?

I continue to maintain that the modern left is Don Quixote writ large (less the aspiration or motivation of nobility). All full of anger, bravery and courage at any object that can not or will not fight back. But when it comes time to face real evil, to stand up for real injustice, they run and cower like so many cockroaches. If they were true and consistent to any of their claimed values, we wouldn't have a problem with radical islam. Rather than stand up to a poli/religious cult that invents new ways to kill gays, that allows, excuses and sometimes requires the sexual and physical abuse of women, they rage with impotent fury at some little old lady in some small town because she made a minor mistake--quickly corrected--that didn't give them the election victory they thought they deserved. Rather than protest the very real and well-documented torture of Saddam and other Middle Eastern thugs, they protest the "imperialistic war of American aggression" and the imagined torture in Gitmo (until it's a Dem running the show, of course). Rather than take offense at near-daily assaults on free speech in the name of tolerance of one sect, they send death threats to mom-and-pop hardware stores because they made the mistake of having the same name as their designated arch-villains.

Sad, stupid and pathetic. If there weren't so many of them, we could afford to ignore them.

Its possible that Nikita's son Sergei still rides in them. An American citizen, he lectures at Brown's Watson Institute and the Navy War College. Last I heard he lived in suburban Cranston RI. A Hero of the Soviet Union, he has commented that his father was wrong; socialism won't bury capitalism. Unfortunately, no Democrat and too few Republican legislators heard him.

Wisconsin government and cooperating businesses have proudly provided work opportunities for the mentally, physically and developmentally disabled folks for the past 50 years at least. When I lived in Wisconsin in the '70's, my company was hooked up with a Wisconsin Rapids workshop that employed these disabled folks in such tasks as stamping out credit cards and packaging dog chews.

I can tell you that the sheer delight and pride displayed by these folks in having the opportunity to contribute toward their own independence and well being brought tears to my macho-male eyes.

How dare these asshole unions belittle the disabled and their sponsors. Here are the people that bluecheddar and his union friends were attacking.

Let's follow the logic: Walker's team knows there will be protesters. Opportunities yellow-taped their property to keep protesters off the lawn. (Fair enough.) Protesters were on the sidewalk. The police kept them out of the open streets. Side streets were closed off. (Fair enough.)

So the proper response is to drive faster than the speed limit in a mixed residential / light industry neighborhood? Why?

You're right, campy. The NAACP should be contacted immediately. There is a revenue generating opportunity and they, like all other businesses, have been affected by fiscal losses.

Maybe they can get their fellow conspirators at ADL, ACLU, NCLR, MALDEF, CAIR, etc., in on the act. Then again, their alliance with domestic and foreign interests (including governments) in support and protection of illegal aliens may have been their only unifying agenda.

Oh, and don't forget the SPCL, which also profits greatly from the exploitation of manufactured controversies.

Such a shame. They don't make civil rights organizations and non-profits as they used to. Well, there was the KKK, which served their purpose in days now past.

Can't we all just get along and will left-wing ideologues every discover a revenue generating scheme other than involuntary exploitation?

gadfly has it right. These protesters are idiots whose cause of the day would cause cutbacks in programs like Opportunities, Inc. The "sinister SUV" bit was just a throwaway line in a post containing far more stupidity than that.

The people I saw in that video were pathetic whiners, not sinister threats to anything except rational discourse.

So the proper response is to drive faster than the speed limit in a mixed residential / light industry neighborhood? Why?

I already told you.

So the scumball dirtbag shiftless protestors can't launch themselves like blood sucking ticks and cling to the cars with their nasty sucker like hands while wearing tie dyed tee shirts and not having bathed for weeks.

Years ago I saw Jim Doyle & Scott Walker together outside the Dairy Barn at the Wisconsin State Fair.Doyle was the Governor and Walker was the Milwaukee County Executive at the time.Doyle's security guys - at least 5 - were in a phalanx formation. This was not a meet the people at the State Fair thing like Bill Proxmire did.Walker may of had a security guy. I don't know. It wasn't obvious.

I really wanted to do my impression of Spara's braying donkey (Godfather 3). My wife stopped me - said those guys would beat the crap out of me.

Yup...ain't no joke! The Governor of Wisconsin is using tax dollars to pay a foreign company for mercenaries to protect him.

In that case he's releasing state cops to go out and protect the good citizens of Wisconsin. If you want to go after Walker on this, you'll actually have to do some work and figure out the cost comparison between this outsourcing and using state employees. When you do that, be sure to account for any productivity differences, not just dollar expenditures.

I find the foreign security company thing a little weird. Not "sinister" or anything, but one of those things where I think "Isn't there an American company that can do the job, and better?". If the answer is no, that blows.

They drive fast for humanitarian reasons. If they drove slow and the protestors got a really good look at the Governor their heads might esplode! It is a true life saving measure and demonstration of incredible sympathy and concern by the Governor and his staff.

Sure, more fans or AC or better AC or better fans in the heat is a legitimate gripe.

Does it really make economic sense to install AC in a building like that in Wisconsin? How many days a year would it be used?

As for fans, was it stated that there weren't any fans in the building now? I don't remember one way or the other. But if these protesters chipped in a few bucks apiece, they could buy some fans to contribute to the workers they care about so much. This is, after all, at least a semi-charitable organization.

They pay him piecework for filling little bags with the screws for things like ceiling fans and the like. Gives him something to do and provides him a little dough to spend on what he wants, which is usually nothing.

That brings to mind this item:

In restating the church's teaching on human work, John Paul repeatedly cites God's command to man in Genesis to "subdue the earth." The Pope interprets this to mean that man is the "subject of labor" and that "work is 'for man,' and never man 'for work.' "

But I didn't notice any union goons in the article complaining about the person running the non-profit. They were complaining about a business owner supposedly raking in the big bucks off of non-minimum wage labor during a time when people need jobs that can support families.

The dishonesty of this is remarkable since no one could argue that the people in the program produce above what they're paid, and even that is subsidized.

The union goons could, however, make enough stink that it's no longer worth-while for an employer to participate in the program.

Not bullshit at all. Tho I did make one small mistake...it is a Danish firm (that has since merged with a British company) that Walker has contracted with, not Dutch.

Used to be called Wackenhut but has now changed their name to G4S Secure Solutions. Walker's relationship with the company goes back to when he was a County Executive - google it up and see for yourself.

I hate to feed your distracting and meaningless diversion PP, but the members of the governor's security detail are mainly Wisconsin residents and US citizens employed by a multinational firm. What's your beef with hiring Americans?

Additionally, Wackenhut was founded and organized in the US before being bought by the Danes and then merged with G4S. To say that it's "foreign", because it has foreign capital invested is disingenuous. Should we organize a boycott of Miller beer too, and put people in Milwaukee out of work, just because the company is partly owned by South Africans?

Who said anything about boycotting a company just 'cause they are foreign-owned? Please put that straw man away before you hurt someone with it.

But yes, if MillerBrewing gets bought out by an overseas company then they are no longer an American company. It would be silly to claim otherwise.

Just like it was silly to claim that what I said was "100% bullshit." We can talk about if it is a good-thing, a bad-thing, or a whateva-thing but a difference of opinion doesn't change the actual facts about what is occurring, and the fact is that tax dollars are being paid to a foreign company to provide for Walker's security. It ain't no bullshit to point that out...